Punch selector mechanism



P 9, 1959 I P. R. HOFFMAN 3,465,959

PUNCH SELECTOR MECHANISM Filed March 20, 1967 4 Sheets-Sheet 1 INVENTOR.

PAUL R. HOFFMAN.

A TTORNEX P 9, 1969 P. R. HOFFMAN 3,465,959

PUNCH SELECTOR MECHANISM Filed March 20, 1967 4 Sheets-Sheet 2 4 fl '1' r 1 6i INVENTOR.

\ J PAUL R. HOFFMA N.

\k BY? AT TORNE Y.

Sept. 9, 1969 P. R. HOFFMAN 3,465,959

1 PUNCH SELECTOR MECHANISM Filed March 20, 1967 4 Sheets-Sheet 3 INVENTOR.

PAUL R HUFFMAN. BY

ATTORNEY Se t. 9, 1969 P. R. HOFFMAN PUNCH SELECTOR MECHANISM Filed March 20, 1967 4 Sheets-Sheet 4 INVENTOR. PAUL R. HUFFMAN.

ATTORNEY.

United States Patent 3,465,959 PUNCH SELECTOR MECHANISM Paul R. Hoffman, Farmington, Mich., assignor to Burroughs Corporation, Detroit, Mich., a corporation of Michigan Filed Mar. 20, 1967, Ser. No. 624,363 Int. Cl. 606k 1/05 U.S. Cl. 234114 5 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE A punch selector mechanism having a spring flexure mounted, magnetically controlled and mechanically resettable interposer positionable between a continuously driven reciprocating punch drive bail and a punch tool element to form part of the drive train depending upon the position of the interposer as controlled by the selector.

BACKGROUND Field of the invention The invention relates generally to record marking, e.g., punch, apparatus of the type having a continuously driven power actuator and a plurality of record marking punch members individually adapted to be selectively coupled to the actuator for inclusion in or exclusion from the power drive train, and, more particularly, to selector mechanism featuring improved spring flexure mounted interposers and reset mechanism for use in apparatus of this and allied character.

Prior art The invention provides an improved card punch selector mechanism most closely related to that shown in US. Patent 3,194,494 in which an interposer is coupled through a spring coupling to a magnetically controlled armature that is selectively movable between a position in which it holds the interposer out of the drive transmission train and another position in which the interposer is located in the drive train from the drive bail to the punch. The armature is journalled on a fixed rod and is pivotally mounted for arcuate movement thereon between two positions or limits, and the coupling between the armature and the interposer is of varying or variable length in order to prevent differential movement that would otherwise occur between the interposer and the parts of the punch drive during the punching operation when the interposer is clamped between the drive bail and the punch. The mounting of the armature, however renders the punch selector structure susceptible to hearing wear and fretting corrosion about its rotary pivot, which is fixed against axial translation, and unduly complicates the design and deleteriously affects the fatigue life of the coupling between the armature and the interposer. Additionally, separate rotatable bearing mounted restoring means for resetting the interposers and for retracting the actuated punches are employed, thereby unnecessarily contributing to reduction of service life and to increased parts wear, maintenance and noise.

SUMMARY In the punch selector of the present invention, the armature is suspended from the frame by a flexure coupling so as to eliminate the use of rotary pivot mountings for the armature as well as the interposer which is coupled to the armature through a cantiliver flexure. The mounting of the armature and interposer permits the use of an armature to interposer coupling which is of unvarying length, subjected to only unidirectional bending stresses in the selected condition of the interposer during the "ice punching operation, but is free of any bending stresses 1n the non-select condition of the interposer. The selector structure prevents wear producing differential movement between the interposer and the associated parts of the punch, provides positive non-slipping interconnection with the parts of the punch and is characterized by flexure mountings of all of its movable parts including the interposer resetting structure so as to eliminate entirely the use of rotary pivots or bearings that are subject to rubbing, wear and fretting corrosion. The selector structure and punch organization is specially suited for use in high speed card punching systems in which speed, cost, size, power consumption, service life, maintenance and noise are important considerations.

In accordance with the invention the armature is suspended from the frame by a parallel motion flexure coupling, and the interposer is supported by another parallel motion flexure coupling from the armature. In the nonpunch interposer position or non-select condition of the selector, the interposer is positioned out of the path of the drive train by the armature which is held against a selectively de-energizable control magnet causing the flexure suspension of the armature from the frame to flex or yield in a direction against the attractive force of the control magnet. De-energization of the control magnet permits the armature to be restored by the tension force stored in the flexure suspension itself to a position in which the interposer is located directly in the path of movement of the drive train to couple the elements of the train together. In the latter or punch select position, the interposer becomes clamped between the drive bail and the punch, causing the suspension coupling of the armature to the frame to flex or yield slightly in its opposite direction in order to permit slight translation of the arma ture due to the deflection of the armature-to-interposer coupling during the punching operation. The translation of the armature compensates for the component of movement of the armature-to-interposer coupling in the deflected condition of that coupling so that it may remain of constant length without being subjected to longitudinal tensile stresses during bending, thereby simplifying its design and enhancing its service or fatigue life. Additionally, the armature to interposer coupling is free of any bending stresses in the non-select condition or position of the interposer. Restoration of all of the selected interposers is accomplished through a flexure driven and flexure mounted restore bail which is driven from the eccentrically driven punch drive bail that positively retracts all of the actuated punches.

DRAWINGS The invention, both as to its structural organization and operation, will be explained more fully in the following detailed description made with reference to the accompartying drawings, of which:

FIG. 1 is a side elevation view with parts broken away of a punching station of a high speed card punch machine embodying the punch selector of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a perspective view with parts broken away to illustrate the relationship of several punch plaque interposer assemblies installed in the punching station of the card punch machine;

FIG. 3 is an enlarged perspective detail view of parts of the punch selector structure;

FIGS. 4, 5 and 6 are views showing the relationship and relative displacements of the several parts of the punch selector under difierent conditions of punch operation; and

FIG. 7 is a perspective view with parts broken away and in phantom of the punch drive bail and the interposer restore bail.

3 DETAILED DESCRIPTION The punch selector of the present invention is employed in a card punch machine for punching of tabulating cards, one form of which contains 960 punch receiving locations distributed in a 12 row 80 column matrix pattern. The cards are individually picked and fed on demand from a supply hopper to a registration and alignment station from which an aligned card is incrementally advanced, row by row, past a punching station. As shown in FIG. 1, the punching station comprises a support frame 12 defined generally by a laterally spaced apart pair of upstanding side support plates 14, 15 between which is a horizontally extending bed plate 16. Iournalled in the side plates is a drive shaft 18, which is continuously driven from a drive motor (not shown) and carries at its opposite ends a longitudinally spaced pair of oscillatably driven members or connecting rods 20, 21 that are eccentrically mounted on the drive shaft, Each rod has a depending portion as 24 and is suitably guided for reciprocating motion in a direction essentially parallel to the vertical axial plane of the shaft. Extending between the guided lower end of the connecting rods is a channelshaped bail or ram 26 connected to the rods.

Secured to the support frame and located below the drive bail 26 is the punch assembly 28 which includes a plurality of elongated marking or punch elements, as 30, arranged side by side in a row of 80 parallel elements, corresponding in number to the 80 columns of a row of punch positions of a standard Hollerith punch card. The punches are movable between a retracted non-punch position and a perforating position and are mounted in a guide block 32 including a stripper plate 34 and punch die 36 which are spaced apart a distance slightly greater than the thickness of a card to define a card receiving slot 38 through which the card 40 being punched is incrementally fed by the card transporting means, not shown. Near their upper ends the punch elements are notched or provided with longitudinally spaced shoulders as 42, 43 between which is received the oppositely extending lower flange portion 46 of the channel-shaped bail member 26.

The punch elements 30 are retained at a predetermined elevated position with the piercing end of the punch elements 30 held slightly above the card slot 38 by a comblike slotted spring flexure 48 mounted on the upper end of the guide block 32 and including a plurality of spring fingers 49 each engaging under the shoulder 43 of a corresponding punch element. The spring fingers 49 retain the non-selected punches in their elevated position while the actuated punches are positively retracted by the drive bail flange portion 46 engaging under the shoulder 42 of these punches, it being significant to note that the drive bail retracts .as Well as actuates the selected punches.

Positioned in the channel defined in the drive bail or ram member 26 and located above the upper end of each punch element is an interposer element 52 having a shoulder 54 formed by a horizontal land surface 55, which is adapted to be received under a cooperating drive shoulder 57 of the channel drive bail member, and a vertical riser surface 56. In the retracted or non-punch position of the interposer, the surface 56 is spaced slightly from an adjacent vertical surface 58 of the drive bail to permit movement of the drive bail past the shoulder of the interposer. The interposer is part of the punch selector structure which comprises a removable punch plaque assembly on which is mounted two complete punch selector and interposer structures, one on each side of each plaque, so that for an 80 column punch there would be forty of such plaque assemblies.

The plaque assemblies are located side by side spaced slightly from each other and are supported on notched support bars 61, 62 extending horizontally transversely between the side frames of the supporting structure. Each plaque includes a vertically disposed flat plate 60 having an arcuate cut out lower forward portion 63 that is positioned against the matching surface of a round stop rod 64 secured to and extending between the side frames. A similar stop rod 65 is provided as a positioning stop contact bearing against an elevated forward portion of each of the plates 60. The rearward portion of each plate is relieved to form a yieldable tail 66 that bears against a locking stop bar 67 releasably secured to and extending between the side frames to hold all of the plates securely in position against the stop rods 64, 65. The central portion of each plate is cut out to form an enlarged through opening 70 therein in which the control magnets of the selector structure are mounted, two magnets being provided for each interposer assembly on opposite sides of a plaque plate.

The control magnets are mounted in sets of two on a quad-fingered core plate 74 that is secured to the plaque plate 60 and contains four vertically spaced horizontally extending core fingers, as 75, terminating slightly from the forward wall 76 of the opening 70 and contained in the plane of the plate 60. Each core finger has a coil winding thereon extending between insulating spacers as 82, 83 with the lowermost coil 78 electrically connected in series with the adjacent coil 79 immediately thereabove and the uppermost coil 81 connected in series with the adjacent coil immediately therebelow. The terminals of the coil windings are electrically connected to a three terminal printed circuit board 84 which is riveted to the fingered core plate, of which the central pad or terminal 86 is the common conductor for each set of upper and lower control magnets. Riveted to one side of each plaque plate is an upper printed circuit board '90 also bearing three conductors thereon. The upper board 90 is connected at its lower end to the three terminal pads 85, 86, 87 of the lower board 84 by flexible wire connections and has three terminal pads at its upper end pluggably received in .an appropriate plug-in connector 98 through which current is supplied to the control magnets of each plaque assembly.

Each set of control magnets cooperates with a respective one of a pair of armatures 100, 102, which are located on opposite sides of a selector plaque and are structurally coupled to and control the positioning of the interposers. Armature 100 has a downwardly directed rear tab portion 103 with an inwardly turned flange 104 that butts against the ends of the cores of the two lowermost control magnets 78, 79, when the latter are energized. The tab portion 106 of the armature 102 is upwardly turned with its flanged end 107 turned in the opposite direction to the flanged end of armature 100 and limits against the cores of the two uppermost control magnets. The flanged ends of the armature tab portions extend through the central opening 70 in the plate 60 and are spaced slightly from the forward wall 76 of the opening therein.

In accordance with one aspect of the invention the armature associated with each interposer of the punch selector is non-rotatably coupled to or supported on or from the support frame through a parallel motion flexure suspension, as 110, which provides essentially parallel straight line motion. In the illustrated embodiment of the invention, the suspension comprises three vertically extending, spaced parallel flat strip spring members 111, 112, and 113 which are of equal length and are connected at their lower ends to the armature and at their upper ends to an overhanging support arm as 116, a separate one of which is riveted to each side of a support plaque. The spring flexure members are composed of flat strip stainless steel and are of rectangular crosssection. The respective ends of each of the springs may be formed as shown in FIG. 3 to have a quarter turn or twist 117 therein and are snugly received in a key-like slot 119 of a dove-tail groove 118 in the support arm and in the armature in which the springs are secured in place by casting or potting in nylon or Delrin material in a mold.

To relieve stress concentrations due to an abrupt change in material section at the points where the several fiexures enter their respective apertures in the support arm and in the armature, peaked or triangular shaped gradual transition sections 122 are provided in the molded connection forms. The upper moulding 126 on each of the armatures has an integrally formed upwardly extending flat faced nose portion 127 which is adapted to contact a restore bail through which the armature and interposer assembly are positionable as explained below.

The interposer 52 is supported in cantilever fashion from the armature to which it is coupled by a parallel motion flexure 130 comprising a pair of horizontally extending, spaced parallel flat strip spring members 131, 132, which are of equal and unvarying or constant length and are connected at their ends to the armature and to the interposer by potting or molding in a manner similar to that described for the armature suspension from the frame.

The armature control magnets perform no work in the sense of causing any movement of the armatures, but serve primarily to hold or retain an associated armature against the cores of a pair of normally energized magnets. The actual movement or displacement of the armatures toward the magnets is accomplished by or effected from a mechanically driven, cyclically oscillating bail 140 that restores or resets any previously selected and released interposers to their non-select or punch disabling position. The bail 140 is flexure mounted for rocking movement by a laterally spaced pair of crossfiexure pivots, as 142, 143, and is flexure driven from or coupled to the drive shaft 18 by a pair of laterally spaced flat spring strips 144, 145, as shown.

structurally, the restore bail 140 is a one-piece casting formed by a pair of laterally spaced depending lever arms 146, 147 joined intermediate their ends by a horizontally extending central web portion 148 and at their lower ends by a flat-faced armature contacting portion 149 extending beyond the lever arms. The central web portion of the bail has a raised boss 150 and a projecting side boss 151 thereon which provide a horizontal plane flat surface and a vertical flat plane surface, respectively, to which is fastened one end of each of a laterally spaced pair of horizontally extending flat strip spring members 152, 153 and one end of each of another pair of laterally spaced vertically extending flat strip spring members 154, 155, respectively. The other end of each of the horizontally extending strips 152, 153 and of the vertically extending strips 154, 155 is fastened to a horizontally presented surface 158 and to a vertically presented surface 159, respectively, of a channel or angle-shaped support 156 extending laterally transversely between and secured to the side frames. To facilitate fastening and relieve stress concentrations at the ends where the flexure pivot and drive strips are fastened, the fastening ends of the strips are thickened by molding in suitable plastic stress relieving material.

The cross members 152, 154 and 153, 155 constituting the flexure pivots 142, 143 are spaced slightly from each other so as not to be in actual physical contact and are contained in mutually orthogonally related planes, the intersection of which defines an arcuately translatable axis about which the restore bail pivots for small deflections of the cross members. The restore bail 140 is synchronously driven from the drive shaft through the aforementioned flat strip drive flexure members 144, 145 which are attached to the upper end of the lever arms 146, 147 of the restore bail and to the driven shaft end of the corresponding connecting rods 20, 21 of the eccentrically mounted punch drive bail. The ends of the drive strip flexures 144, 145 are fastened to the yoke portions of the connecting rods at a point located at an angle, 0, angularly displaced to the vertical axial plane of the drive shaft whereby the restore bail is thus rocked or oscillated thereby about its cross flexure pivots in timed and synchronous relation to the movement of the connecting rods.

The lower end of the restore bail faces the adjacent nose portion 127 of each of the armatures, and, with the cyclical rocking movement, moves the armatures toward the cores of the magnets. The control magnets are normally energized to hold the armatures against the cores by the attractive force of the magnets, causing the flexure suspension of the armature from the frame to flex in a direction toward the cores as shown in FIG. 4. In this position the interposers are in their non-select or punch disabling position. As the drive bail descends from its top dead-center position, the striker surface 57 of the bail misses the cooperating land surface 54 of the retracted interposers, which remain in the position shown and prevent actuation of the punch associated therewith. Since the retracted interposers do not follow the motion of the punch bail, there is no bending of the armature to interposer flexure coupling and no sliding motion of the interposer relative to the bail or punch.

Where a punch is to be actuated, the control magnets associated with that punch are de-energized under the control of the central processor, computer or data control source, whereby the armatures of the interposers selected for punching are released from the magnetic attraction force of the magnets and are moved in an opposite direction solely under or by the restoration force of the vertical flexure springs 111, 112, and 113 of the flexure coupling 110. The armatures follow the movement of the interposer restore bail 140 to a position in which the spring elements of the flexure suspension 110 are in a released or restored unflexed positio as indicated in FIG. 5 in which the interposer is located with its land surface 54 directly under the striker or actuating surface 57 of the drive bail. The armature has moved leftwardly by the amount 0! from its attracted or non-select position in FIG. 4. In both FIGS. 4 and 5 the cantilevered parallel motion connection of the armature to interposer cantilever flexure coupling is in the unflexed condition indicated.

In FIG. 6 the drive bail has descended to approximately its bottom dead-center position having actuated the punch through the interposer which has been positioned between the drive bail and the top of the punch element. The coupling 130 between the interposer and the armature has deflected from its normal position of FIGS. 4 and 5 and has caused the armature to translate slightly by the amount A in the direction towards the plane of the punches with some slight flexing of the armature to frame suspension coupling 110 in a direction opposite to that shown in FIG. 4. The slight amount of translation of the armature resulting from the downward deflection of the armature to interposer coupling 130 enables the flat spring elements 131 and 132 of the latter coupling to remain of unvarying or constant length and avoids the use of a variable length coupling or lost motion connection as would otherwise be required if the armature were prevented or constrained from the additional axial translation. Also, the armature to interposer flexure coupling is not subjected to any additional stresses other than those due to the bending deflection during the punching operation and is not worked or subjected to any flexing during non-select or non-punching operations as the interposer does not follow the motion of the punch bail in the non-selected condition of the interposer.

What is claimed is:

1. In a record medium marking apparatus having a frame and a drive shaft rotatably mounted in the frame,

a ram eccentrically mounted on and driven by the shaft in directions toward and away from the shaft,

a record marking member adapted to be driven by the ram in a direction to mark a record medium,

a record marking member selector having an armature portion and an interposer portion, a first set of parallel motion fiexure members connecting the armature portion to the frame and a second set of parallel motion flexure members connecting the interposer portion to the armature portion,

the first set of flexure members adapted to urge the interposer portion in between the ram and the record marking member and the second set of flexure members flexing and allowing the interposer portion 0 move with the ram and the record marking member only when the interposer portion is positioned between the ram and the marking member,

a selectively energizable magnet adapted to hold the armature portion and restrain the interposer portion from movement in between and out of the path of the ram and the record marking member,

an interposer restore bail for moving the armature portion toward the magnet to be held thereagainst depending upon the energization thereof,

a flexure connection between the ram and the interposer restore bail for driving the restore hail from and in timed relation to the movement of the ram, and

a cross fiexture pivot mounting for the interposer restore bail connected between the bail and the frame to permit arcuate movement of the restore bail toward and away from the armature.

2. In record medium marking apparatus, supporting means, an oscillatably driven member, a reciprocal marking member, a ram carried by said oscillatably driven member to actuate said marking member, said marking member spaced from said ram a distance greater than the stroke of said ram, a retractable interposer supported on said supporting means and biased in one direction to move said interposer between and operatively connect said ram and marking member together, said interposer retractable in a direction opposite to said one direction and against said bias, a bail operatively connected to said interposer and pivotally mounted on said supporting means, and a flexure member yieldably connecting said bail to said oscillatably driven member to retract said interposer.

3. In record medium marking apparatus as defined by claim 2 wherein said bail is pivotally mounted on said supporting means by a cross fiexure mounting.

4. In a record medium marking appaartus, supporting means, a reciprocal marking member, a ram to actuate said marking member, an oscillatably driven member to actuate said ram, said marking member spaced from said ram a distance greater than the stroke of said ram, a retractable interposer biased to position between said ram and said marking member to operatively connect the latter to the former, a bail operatively connecting said oscillatably driven member to said interposer to retract the latter by the oscillatory motion of said oscillatably driven member, and a cross flexure pivot mounting connecting said bail to said supporting means.

5. In record medium marking apparatus as defined by claim 3 wherein one of the cross flexures extends transverse to said marking member and normal to the other of the cross flexures.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 3,038,654 6/1962 Steiner 234- 3,123,290 3/1964 Rabinow et a1. 234 -115 3,194,494 7/ 1965 Darwin 234115 3,253,778 5/1966 Hunter et al 234-114 291,388 12/1966 Pataki 234-115 FOREIGN PATENTS 1,099,747 2/ 1961 Germany.

WILLIAM S. LAWSON, Primary Examiner 

